Gangsters -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction; Mystery fiction
A match crackled into flame. An air-choked gas jet, with a protesting
hiss, was lighted. And then Rhoda Gray's drawn face relaxed a little,
and a strange, mirthless smile came hovering over her lips. What was she
afraid of? The Pug was the Adventurer, wasn't he? This was one of the
occasions when he could not escape the entanglements of the gang, and
must work for the gang instead of appropriating all the loot for his own
personal and nefarious ends; but he was the Adventurer. The White Moll
need not fear him, even though he appeared, linked with Pinkie Bonn, in
the role of the Pug! So there was only Pinkie Bonn to fear.
Rhoda Gray took her revolver from her pocket. She was well armed--and
in more than a material sense. The Adventurer did not know that she was
aware of the Pug's identity. Her smile, still mirthless, deepened.
She might even turn the tables upon them, and still secure the stolen
stones. She had turned the tables upon Pinkie Bonn last night; to-night,
if she used her wits, she could do it again!
And then, suddenly, she stifled an exclamation, as the Pug's voice
reached her again:
“Wot are youse gapin' about? Dere ain't anything else worth pinchin'
around here except wot's in de old gent's safety vault. Get a move on!
We ain't got all night! It's de corner behind de washstand. Give us a
hand to move de furniture!”
It wasn't here behind the cretonne hanging! Rhoda Gray bit her lips in
a crestfallen little way. Well, her supposition had been natural enough,
hadn't it? And she would have tried every corner before she was through
if she had had the opportunity.
She moved now slightly, without a sound, parting the clothing away from
in front of her, and moving the cretonne hanging by the fraction of an
inch where it touched the side wall of the room. And now she could see
the Pug, with his dirty and discolored celluloid eye-patch, and his
ingeniously contorted face; and she could see Pinkie Bonn's pasty-white,
drug-stamped countenance.
It was not a large room. The two men in the opposite corner along the
wall from her were scarcely more than ten feet away. They swung the
washstand out from the wall, and the Pug, going in behind it, began
to work on one of the wall boards. Pinkie Bonn, an unlighted cigarette
dangling from his lip, leaned over the washstand watching his companion.
A minute passed--another. It was still in the room, except only for
the distant sounds of the world outside--a clatter of wheels upon the
pavement, the muffled roar of the elevated, the clang of a trolley bell.
And then the Pug began to mutter to himself. Rhoda Gray smiled a little
grimly. She was not the only one, it would appear, who experienced
difficulty with old Jake Luertz's crafty hiding place!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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